The Black Phone alternate movie poster features a retro style and a very wicked warning. Scott Derrickson’s upcoming return to horror features Ethan Hawke as a masked serial killer.
Derrickson of course is now best known for helming the MCU film Doctor Strange. But before directing that particular Marvel origin story, he cut his moviemaking teeth in horror films. Derrickson’s filmography indeed includes multiple fright-flicks, from the direct-to-video Hellraiser: Inferno to The Exorcism of Emily Rose to Sinister to Deliver Us From Evil. This being the case, it’s no surprise to see him returning to the horror genre with his next movie The Black Phone. Unfortunately for fans of Derrickson and his horror works The Black Phone was recently delayed until summer of 2022 after originally being scheduled to come out in January.
Fans may now have to wait a few extra months for Derrickson’s long-awaited return to horror but that doesn’t mean enthusiasm is waning for what The Black Phone has in store. Indeed, creepyduckdesign just helped with the movie’s hype by crafting an alternate poster featuring a devilish version of Hawke’s masked villain along with a scary tagline. See the image in the space below:
The new poster clearly has a very retro feel complete with fold marks for that extra jolt of horror movie nostalgia. Indeed the movie itself has a retro feel as it’s set in the 1970s, the era of seminal horror films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Last House on the Left. The story concerns a young man named Finney Shaw who is kidnapped by Hawke’s masked killer The Grabber, and soon discovers a disconnected phone that allows him to communicate with the spirits of the murderer’s prior victims. The supernatural horror film based on a short story by Joe Hill actually had its debut at 2021’s Fantastic Fest and currently carries a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on just 11 reviews).
The circumstances of Derrickson taking on The Black Phone are of course rather unfortunate as the director only tackled the project after leaving the Doctor Strange sequel due to creative differences with Marvel Studios. But the real winners may be fans of horror, as leaving behind the MCU freed up Derrickson to return to the genre after a hiatus of several years. Indeed The Black Phone looks like a truly frightening excursion, with a story steeped in the supernatural, a tone inspired by some of the classics of ‘70s horror and a memorable killer played by a legit actor in Hawke.
Source: creepyduckdesign/Instagram
